Even If You Were The Last Person On Earth
by Colorain
Summary: All Susan Blackweld did was fall off a cliff. All Legolas Greenleaf did was fall into a mist. Fate has brought them together-but can they make it without killing each other first?
1. Everything *Sucks*

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Even If You Were The Last Person On Earth

By Colorain

Disclaimer: I own Susan Blackweld. So far. No LOTR characters belong to me. They belong to Tolkien, who would hate me for this. This is a Legolas fic. It is not a romance! And it is also thinly-veiled author insertion . . . but no Mary-Sue. And I can't write. There, I think we're done.

The sun was shining. The birds were singing. And as Susan Blackweld's hiking boot slipped on the moss covering a neatly concealed rock, she knew it was going to be one hell of a sucky day.

A voice cut through the peaceful woods. "That is _it_. That is the absolute _last_ time that I ever listen to my parents again. 'Why don't you go camping this weekend, Susan? It's about time you reconnected with nature. You used to love camping with us when you were little. What happened?'"

"I'll _tell_ you what the frig happened!" The voice was screaming now. "Bugs _suck_. Dirt _sucks_. Camping clothing _sucks_. And as for reconnecting with nature? That's why we have the _Discovery Channel_. I am taking out my cell phone _right now_," At this, Susan's hand shoved deep into her jean pocket and pulled out the said item. "and I am dialing home, and I am getting—no freaking way. There is _no freaking way_ that I don't have any reception. This is the _woods_, for god's sake. There is absolutely _no_ way that I don't have reception." Susan eyeballed the small gold phone in her hand from her vantage point on the forest floor. It looked innocently back at her. For a brief moment, Susan was tempted to fling the offending object into the nearest bush, but her head hurt too much to look for one, and her aim sucked anyway.

"You're one lucky piece of crap, you know that?" she muttered. "If we don't get reception from you in the next thirty minutes, you are _so_ getting dropped in the closest hole I find." With that threat hanging satisfactorily on the air, Susan shoved her palms into the dirt underneath her and shoved up. The trees spun for a second as the blood rushed back down into the lower parts of her body. Susan pulled her dark green backpack to her side and rummaged through the assorted stuff inside. "Lipstick—no. CD player—no. Moisturizer—okay, in a few minutes but not yet. Aspirin—yes!" She popped the top of the childproof bottle and shook two tablets directly into her mouth. Her hands were, after all, dirty. She swallowed without water and grimaced as the pain medication slowly slid down her throat.

Susan glanced at her wristwatch. It was after three. At least time to pick a campsite, if not set it up. She pulled herself up off the ground and brushed at her pants. "Damn! My jeans are dirty. But then again, what did I expect? This entire trip has _so_ not gone like I expected." Her car had died out a mile away from the campgrounds, she had forgotten a pillow, had no reception on her cell phone—and now her jeans were dirty. Things could not get any worse.

Or so she thought.

~*~

Once again, the voice of Susan Blackweld disturbed the forest. "Tents _suck_."

At five o'clock, an hour and a half after she had started setting up camp, she still hadn't figured out the concept of tent poles. And cell phone reception still hadn't been restored. And it was getting dark. And, as she discovered much to her dismay, while she had not forgotten a flashlight, she had forgotten to check its batteries. Which were weak and fading fast.

She was reduced to talking to the tent poles. "Now, now, Susan needs a place to sleep tonight. And you are going to cooperate or else Susan is going to get very, _very_ angry . . ." Susan kicked one of the poles. It stood at an awkward angle, but it stayed up. Eventually, the entire tent was put up—not exactly how the manufacturer had expected, but it would last the night. Oh, night. Susan was very tired after her ordeal and crawled into her tent. _I'll close my eyes. I won't sleep—just rest, and I'll start a fire in a moment. No sleep _. . . A minute later, Susan Blackweld was fast asleep with no pillow, no fire, and no clue as to what was coming.


	2. Choose Your Own Adventure

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Even If You Were The Last Person On Earth

By Colorain

Disclaimer: Susan Blackweld belongs to me. No Tolkien stuff shows up yet, so I'm safe on that front. Welcome to the chapter of product plugs. I don't own Indiglo, Scotchlite or _Choose Your Own Adventure_. And . . . yeah, this chapter is short because we all want to get to Legolas, right?

And thank you reviewers! Nightshade, Indiana Jones, SnowLight, and Minka . . . I love you all!

The eerie sound of wind whipping through treetops, the ominous peals of thunder rolling under the clouds, and the bright flashes of lightning ripping through the darkened sky were not what had wakened Susan Blackweld. No, while they had certainly helped, a more pressing problem had torn her from her slumber.

Her poor tent, so cursed at, so worked on, had given up. It had succumbed to the first big gust of wind and was now merrily flying away into the woods.

Susan opened her eyes, and was instantly blinded by the jagged crack of lightning scorching the ground _way_ too close to where she was. She blinked quickly, trying to get her sight back so she could chase her tent and find better shelter. It looked like it was going to rain.

Green spots still danced in front of her eyes, but Susan grabbed her backpack and ran off in the direction of her tent. "Get back here!" she yelled at it (like that was going to help), but her voice was snatched away and carried far in front of her. Despite the darkness, Susan managed to press the Indiglo button on her watch. It flashed the time: 11:37. _Damn_, she thought, _I had a long nap_. Her tent had again blown out of sight, despite its neon coloring and 3M® Scotchlite® reflective material strip.

As she cut through the woods, another streak of lightning illuminated the area around her. To her left, the tent. To her right, a cave which would provide some shelter . . . maybe. She stopped in her tracks. Susan twisted her head in both directions, desperately trying to make a quick decision. She hated making quick decisions.

"I'm in a _Choose Your Own Adventure_ book, I swear," Susan grumbled, and decided. The tent. It was her parents, and they just might kill her if she came back without it. If, in fact, she came back at all, since Susan Blackweld was utterly, entirely, lost.

"This _sucks_."

~*~

The rain had started. Tiny daggers of ice stabbed their way through her clothing and chilled her skin. A wild bout of wind had stolen the tent soon after she had decided to follow it. _You're in it now_, she told herself. _No turning back. No wimping out_.

The ground was slippery—the rocks slick and dangerous. Susan slid more than once, but still kept her balance—a miracle of its own, because she was definitely _not_ known for her grace.

The thunder and lightning were occuring almost simultaneously now, and Susan knew that she was in the worst of the storm. The ground rumbled beneath her feet, but didn't stop when the thunder did. _What the hell?_ she thought, still searching out her tent.

Susan knew almost before she stepped that she was going to fall. Her hiking boot hit the wet rock, stuck . . . for a precious, life-changing moment, time stopped . . . then slid out from under her. There was no saving grace, no ground to break her fall as there had been that afternoon, only empty air.

Susan Blackweld, in a moment of true stupidity, had slipped on a rock right next to a small crevasse. As she fell, her last thought before hitting bottom was: _Crap_.


	3. Pointy Ears

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Even If You Were The Last Person On Earth

By Colorain

Disclaimer: Finally, we get to the part that counts. Legolas, Mirkwood, Thranduil—anything Tolkien no belongy to me. Susan still belongs to me. And I managed to write a two-parted chapter—there is no rhyme or reason to this, people. And I am going away, so if anyone besides Minka actually reads this, no more until a week!

Legolas Greenleaf, Prince of Mirkwood, son of Thranduil (oh, I'm sure every Legolas fic doesn't start out that way!) stepped soundlessly through the forest. His fingers curled loosely around his bow, and each of his arms were tense enough to drawn an arrow from his back and notch it to fire in the blink of an eye. He was on the lookout. For exactly what, though, he could not tell.

Evil was stirring. An unnatural storm was brewing—dark clouds moved quickly against the wind and the air had a sickly muggy feel that nonetheless chilled one to the bone.

Legolas' ears buzzed a second before the first bolt of lightning hit. He knew without turning around that it had cracked behind him, to his left. Though he yearned to put out the fire he knew would start, Legolas resisted the urge. Luckily, the grasses of the forest were not too dried with the heat of summer. Whatever burned, would burn quickly, and itself out.

Faint tremors shook the earth as the thunder came calling for its white-hot mate. A low throb emanated from deeper inside the woods. Legolas pulled an arrow from his quiver and notched it, making no more noise than breath itself. A strange sight greeted him as he crept nearer to the sound.

A purple-blue cloud, completely opaque, sat in the middle of a small clearing. It pulsed as if it were a heartbeat—one that Legolas was about to end.

His arrow flew straight and true. But instead of burying itself in the cloud's center, or at least passing through to the other side, it had disappeared.

"What strange magic is this?" he whispered in shock. Despite his realization that the cloud was harmful, that the cloud was the thing causing the storm, he could not help but creep closer. Like a snake with its prey, it disoriented him in order to prepare for the final strike.

The ground tilted. With a cry, the befuddled Legolas fell into the unearthly swirl of color. He vanished, as did the cloud.

A moment later, it began to rain.

~*~

No amount of aspirin was going to make _this_ headache go away. Susan carefully lifted one aching arm and gingerly touched the back of her head. No blood (a good thing), but a lump the size of Texas (a bad thing). Merely brushing her fingertips across it caused a wave of nausea to overtake her, and Susan half-laughed, half-cried at the sensation.

She lay there for a while, musing as to how things didn't seem to hurt if you didn't move them, only to hear a strange whistling sound above her and the satisfying _thwack_ as an object buried itself in her backpack.

Susan was almost afraid to look, but opened an eye. When she saw what was sticking out of her green backpack at a rather jaunty angle, she shut it again.

__

People don't shoot arrows in the woods, Susan. Or at least they aren't supposed to. This is the twenty-first century. We use guns now. You're going to open your eyes, you're going to check out your backpack, and then we are going to take one large-ass dosing of pain medication.

Susan again ventured to lift an eyelid. The arrow was still there. A sudden shadow blocked the sun—crap, how long had she been out?—and Susan looked up just in time to watch a human body plummet right onto her prone figure.

Screams would not come. Fresh pain coursed through every inch of her body, but the breath had been knocked out of her and she simply could not scream. Taking small gasps of breath that made her feel like she was hyperventilating, Susan tried her best to roll the human body off of her. He came off rather easily, seeing as he seemed to weigh a ton when he was being used as a human paperweight.

The man woke up as soon as he hit ground, and sprang to his feet. It was then Susan noticed his strange clothing. He was dressed for a Renaissance fair, in green leggings and a brown tunic. A quiver of arrows hung from a strap laid horizontally across his back, and a bow was clenched in his hand. His long blonde hair shone in the sunlight, and small braids peeked out from behind his ears.

Oh, yes, and those ears were pointy.


	4. I Keep On Fallin . . .

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Even If You Were The Last Person On Earth

By Colorain

Disclaimer: This was written while I was away on vacation, and heavily edited when I finally decided to type it up (meaning: the day it was uploaded). Most of what was added were Susan's thoughts; they appear in the large blocks of _italicized_ text. Susan Blackweld belongs to me. Legolas Greenwood—aka Spock (you'll get it when you read it)—doesn't belong to me. He's Tolkien's. And Spock isn't mine, he's Roddenberry's. And I mean no offence to the children of Texas—I have a thing against Bush. Norolinde is an Elvish word—you'll find out what it means soon enough—but if you want to cheat and look it up, I found it at: http://www.dragons-inn.org/Ifreann/eng_elf.html. Now read the weird chapter!

If Susan Blackweld had been prone to fainting spells, she had no doubt she would have been lying on the forest floor, unconscious and at the mercy of some freaky play actor who was a little more lost than she was. Mentally _and_ physically.

The actor had drawn his bow and was pointing one of his rather nasty-looking arrows at her. "Are you the witch who has brought me here?" he demanded in accented English.

Susan managed a short laugh—rather hard, actually, since her abdomen hurt so much. "Do you go randomly falling out of the sky, threatening girls and then asking them if they're witches? Cause if you do, I forgive you, but if you don't . . . Let's just say that I haven't had the best day—best night, even—so far, and you don't wanna mess with me. 'Kay?" Susan managed a sour grimace for a smile.

The man kept his bow trained on her. _Gosh, is he thick or what?_ "Where have you brought me?" he demanded. "These look not like the forests of Mirkwood."

__

Mirkwood. This is great! Where's this guy from? Texas? Susan pulled herself up, no thanks to her tights-loving companion. Her temper flared. _He falls down on me. Shoots an arrow in my bag. Has the gall to call me a witch! Okay, I admit I can be a little PMSy sometimes, but so can every other female on the planet. And he doesn't even offer to help me up. Jerk!_

"Listen. Cut the act, _Spock_." she spat at him. "I'm lost. I fell off a cliff. _You_ fell on top of me. There's an arrow in my backpack. I lost my parents tent, and," Susan paused for maximum dramatic effect. She showed him the crowning achievement with much glee. "I broke a nail." It just happened to be the one on her middle finger (if that wasn't irony!), but the Spock-man wasn't even fazed.

__

And what a way to tell him off, too. Tell him everything you were just thinking! Smooooth operator, aren't we? Susan ached all over. Where had she put her aspirin bottle, again? Taking a step towards her backpack, her legs buckled and she felt herself sink into Spock's arm. _How embarrassing_, she thought. _This is the last thing I need._

"Norolinde," he murmured, so quietly she could barely hear him. Or maybe what her parents said was true: getting lost in the woods really _did_ make you deaf. "You are only human, no witch."

"And since when is being 'only human' such a bad thing?" Susan asked, taking offence. She took offence on a lot of things. "Despite those . . . freaky ears and the way you traipse around in the woods shooting _real_ arrows into people's backpacks, you're human too." _Good job, Susan!_ her internal cheerleader sarcastically commented. _Mention the backpack enough times, maybe he'll start to feel bad!_

A slight smile crossed the blonde's lips. "I meant not to shoot your pack. Though I am an excellent archer—" _Don't toot your own horn, or anything like that, bud!_ "I had little control over this particular arrow when it left my bow." He bent down and plucked it out of her bag with a quick tug. Susan desperately hoped her CD player was still in one piece. "And I'm not human."

~*~

Susan wasn't quite sure how to deal with Spock's younger, blonde, hippy cousin. Either he was smoking something, he was taking this acting thing _way_ too seriously, or he was mental. Susan was hoping for the second option. But if he was mental, didn't the experts say to play along?_ God_, how it sucked to have a bad memory.

"Um, okay . . . if you aren't human, then what are you?" Might as well play along. Susan had the feeling this would make one hell of a story when she got home. _If_ she got home.

The man made a slight bow. "I am Legolas Greenleaf, of Mirkwood. And I am an elf."

Oh, dear lord, he really _was_ mental. Susan suppressed a hysterical giggle. _Play along,_ she warned herself mentally. _Don't push him. When crazy people are pushed they . . . do crazy things. Crap._

"Hi, Spo— Legolas. I'm . . . Susan Blackweld. Um, of New York." Curse her lack of imagination! Mirkwood obviously wasn't real. New York was. What was wrong with her? That part, obviously, needed to be omitted from the final version of her story.

"Is this where you live, Norolinde?" There was that Norolinde thing again. Susan shook her head.

"No, I was just camp—I mean, _journeying_ through these woods and . . . crap." She trailed off. Wherever she was, it sure as hell wasn't where she had been camping. The trees . . . the grass . . . the flowers . . . all were different in such a slight way she couldn't describe it. Only . . . that things weren't quite right. Like she was viewing things through a filter . . .

Susan pulled her cell phone from her pocket. Despite the remarkable number of things that were falling on her lately, it still worked. Or so she hoped.

The small screen still flashed "No reception", but Susan keyed in her home phone number and pressed "send" in hopes that _something_ would make it out. The phone beeped once, forlornly, and would not dial. Susan shut it off and sighed in exasperation. The day from hell had gotten a hell of a lot _worse_.


	5. We're Off To See The Wizard . . .

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Even If You Were The Last Person On Earth

By Colorain

Disclaimer: Sorry this hasn't been up in a while; my comp hates me and wouldn't let me open what I'd already typed for this chapter. So I rewrote it by hand, and had to type it up in a one-time-only shot. Hope that's ok.

Susan is mine, Legolas isn't, and neither is _The Wizard of Oz_. They belong to Tolkien and Baum, respectively. And sorry, the nickname "Norolinde" isn't explained yet. You'll live! Now read and review. You know you want to. (Let me know if I'm losing my touch.)

Things were rushing by Susan's head too quickly for her to even begin to understand.

__

Woah, girl, slow down, she mentally chided. _It's just like a puzzle. You find your pieces, you group them and then you put what you know together._ Susan almost scoffed at her logic.Where they were, what they were doing there—how to get out of it—were not exactly easy answers.

__

This is going to be one damned big puzzle.

Susan wasn't that good with mysteries. She sucked at word problems in school—all that distracting extraneous information—and had always sympathized more with Dr. Watson than Sherlock Holmes. But . . . . but she could at least try and find some of those pieces, even if she couldn't decipher their meaning.

What _did_ she know?

There was that storm from yesterday. Despite not being fond of camping, Susan wasn't an idiot. She had checked the weather forecast before leaving. It was supposed to have been clear until at least the middle of next week.

Then again, weathermen were notoriously idiotic when it came to accuracy and wouldn't know a raindrop from a hippopotamus if it fell on them.

__

Moving right along. Her cell phone hadn't been useful since yesterday afternoon. Which, now that she thought about it, wasn't too out of the ordinary. Susan was pretty sure that in order for most phones to work, you had to be remotely close to a phone line. _And,_ she thought sadly, looking around, _there didn't seem to be any telephone lines, _anywhere_ around._ _At all._

There was also the small matter of her taking aspirin when she had tripped the first time on the trail. Was her water bad?

Crap. Had she overdosed?

It was entirely possible that Susan Blackweld wasn't hanging out with an elf named Legolas. Maybe the storm hadn't happened at all, and she was lying somewhere on the trail, comatose. Or dead. No one would find her in time to help. Out of all the things parents could be right about, Susan desperately hoped this wasn't one of them.

She shivered. _Glad to see I'm still my usual, optimistic self_, she thought sarcastically. Was that it? Was that every possible thing that could explain what had happened to her?

Well, no. Now that Susan wracked her brain, she remembered falling off a crevasse in the storm last night. She turned her head, looking around her.

__

She wasn't anywhere near a crevasse.

~*~

"This isn't real," Susan told herself firmly. "I'm imagining this all. I'm . . . I'm gonna wake up and it's going to be just like _The Wizard of Oz_, except out in the woods. And I'm going to have cell phone reception, and call my parents, and get the hell out of here."

Legolas sat a short distance away from her, politely ignoring her rant and taking inventory of his stuff. _He_ was real. No unreal thing could fall on her and make her muscles ache so badly. Susan fingered the hole in her backpack. That was real, too.

Susan squinted her eyes. Hole . . . arrow . . . Legolas . . . duh! Her absolute idiocy smacked her hard in the face. Why hadn't she bothered to ask Legolas what had happened to _him_? Some detective she was turning out to be.

Well, okay, the only problem that remained with that plan was how to go about it. _Gee, Legolas, anything terribly funky happen to you lately, or is this pretty normal?_

Obviously, Susan's problem was second-guessing herself. What if this Legolas guy _did_ have the answer? She'd be incredibly stupid not to ask.

"Legolas?" she said quietly. Immediately, his head turned so he was looking straight at her. It was unnerving, to say the least. Susan closed her eyes and exhaled, steeling herself.

"Where did you come from? Really?" _Crap! Wrong question. Might as well see how he answers this time._

Legolas blinked. "Perhaps I was not clear the first time I told you. I am from Mirkwood, in Middle-Earth. Do you not know of these places?"

Obviously! "Never heard of them. This is Earth, buddy, no 'middle' about it. We've got humans. We don't have elves. Most people don't own bows and arrows. And _nobody_ dresses like that, either."

Legolas frowned. "Is there something wrong with my attire?" 

Susan snorted. "Nooooo, of course not. I mean, until you decide to go somewhere with other people."

"This is not your Earth." The elf's tone was quiet, and Susan had to prick her ears in order to hear him.

"What!" she exclaimed. "Of _course_ this is Earth. Where else would we be?" Legolas began pacing. It was annoying to watch.

"I am not in Middle-Earth anymore; that mist almost ensures it." He stopped, staring at Susan. He looked scary. "Did anything strange happen to you before I came here?"

Susan barely bit back a laugh. "Do you want the edited version or the unabridged? I kept falling yesterday, there was a big rainstorm and the ground shook all funny, I fell off this crevasse that that has miraculously disappeared . . . Crap." She hadn't moved. She hadn't _been_ moved. She wasn't where she had started out, and drawing on her earlier observations on how everything seemed different, she was willing to bet she wasn't on the same planet anymore. 

Her ears were ringing with the epiphany. "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."


	6. If I Didn't Explain "Norolinde" Someone'...

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Even If You Were The Last Person On Earth

By Colorain

Disclaimer: Have I mentioned enough that Legolas isn't mine? Susan is, though, and stuff. How fun! And I know that I haven't had anything up in . . . fourish months but I'm sorry! It's just really hard because there are two Norolinde's now and they're really different and I got so used to writing the other one that I forgot how to write this one. But I think I got her back, and I'm inspired again so maybe there will be more constant updates? Yay?

"We need to move." Legolas spoke firmly, and Susan looked at him in despair.

"What do you _mean _we need to move? If we're not on _my_ Earth and we're not in _your_ Middle-earth, then how is moving going to help? I fell here. _Here_ is the only place I know right now! Maybe I can get home from here!" Even as she said them, the words rang hollow in her ears. She didn't know what she was doing.

"If you're lost you're not supposed to move so someone can find you," she added sullenly and sat on a convenient rock.

Legolas suddenly stopped dead in his tracks and stood stiffly with his face to the wind. Susan widened her eyes. Was something wrong? Why was he standing like that?

"I should have known," he muttered darkly and began to pace again. Susan watched for all of two seconds before she snapped.

"Stop that!" she yelled, jumping to her feet. As the tall blond man . . . _elf_ turned towards her, she took a step back in fear, forgetting the rock behind her. The world suddenly tilted on its axis and she stared at the sky in disgust.

Legolas leaned over her. There was a small smile on his face as he extended a hand to help her up. "This is not funny." she growled at him. "Just because I have some _intense_ difficulty staying on my feet does _not_ mean you're going to get away with laughing at me."

"I did not call you Norolinde without reason. In my language, it means 'tripping lightly'. It is not meant to insult you, and I only smile because you let it bother you so." 

Susan blinked. Tripping lightly? Nothing she did was dainty or light. "Why don't you just call me 'tripping heavily' and get on with it?" she scowled. Legolas' brow creased into a frown.

"If it bothers you, I will call you Susan." Susan shook her head vehemently. "No, Norolinde's alright. I guess. For now." _Call me whatever you want, once we get out of this it's not like I'm going to see you again._

The man nodded silently and went back to looking around them. Something was obviously up, and it seemed she was too dumb to figure out what it was. Pressing her lips together, Susan tapped Legolas (although she would always think of him as Spock) lightly on the shoulder. "What's the matter?"

"You can't tell?" he replied, his voice faint and fading. Was he even paying attention to her?

"Nooooo, well, I guess I don't have those wonderful superhuman senses that you obviously seem to have." she answered, rolling her eyes. _Oh, wait. That was BAD! Be _good,_ Susan, why is it so hard for you to be good?_

"Listen." She listened. She didn't hear anything. Oh, God.

"There's nothing else here, is there." she whispered. The wind danced through the trees but that was it. There weren't any insects, any animals. No birds. And, she was willing to bet, no people either.

__

I'm stuck with him, she thought, even as he said, "That's why we have to stick together."


	7. Wow, These Are Bad Chapters

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Even If You Were The Last Person On Earth

By Colorain

Disclaimer: If I owned Legolas, I would write him into stories that deserved him. As I don't, I'm allowed to torture the hot man that is he. I own Susie/Noro, I don't own Spock, and I'm going to try to actually make something happen soon. Yay? Yay.

"How the hell am I supposed to trust you" Susan asked, a little weakly. "I've known you for all of like, two hours." Suddenly she seized upon the perfect excuse to get away from Spock and haul out on her own. "How do you know that _you_ can trust _me_?" Triumphant, she crossed her arms across her chest and allowed a grin.

Legolas also smiled. _Good smile or bad smile?_ Susan thought nervously. He showed teeth. _Oh, that's _gotta_ be a bad smile._ Her own smile felt stretched.

"In times of need, less holy alliances than we have been forged."

Crying would have been a very good idea at that moment, except that Susan feared doing that might hurt as well.

~*~

"You're leading," she told him fifteen minutes later. She had grabbed an elastic band and shut the hole in her pack with it. She was _not_ going to risk losing her favorite lipstick, even in the woods.

Lego-Spock had stored his own bow and arrows and seemed ready to leave. An emotion flickered briefly across his face, and Susan guessed it to be surprise. _Yeah, surprise that I didn't give him a fight on something, probably._ So he wouldn't get the wrong idea and think that she would always be so docile and polite (and submissive, even), she quickly launched into an explanation.

"I get lost walking in a straight line," she admitted grudgingly. "You've got the bow and arrows. On the off-chance there _is_ something out here . . . there . . . oh, whatever, you'd do better at the 'protect and kill' thing. And, honest to goodness, Spock-man, I don't want you at my back just yet."

He smiled again. Actually, he smiled a lot, which made Susan wonder if they were I'm-completely bonkers smiles or wow-you're-stupidly-amusing smiles. With her luck, they were a little bit of both with I'm-going-to-stab-you-if-you-don't-shut-up-soon smiles thrown in for a little variety. And then he spoke, which startled her because she still wasn't used to something that could potentially not be real talking. "I believe you, Norolinde. It is true that I am not to be taken lightly if I wish one harm, but I harbor no such feelings towards you. Yet. And I trust you at my own back only because I would know what you were planning to do long before you did it. If you were lucky, you would only break a _few_ bones."

Susan blanched before she realized he was winking at her. _Cad!_ she thought darkly. And then: _why the hell did I just call him a cad? God, is _that_ affected. _

I'm such a weirdo. I'm talking to myself. Oh, God, I hope I'm not actually speaking. He'd think I'm nuts. Maybe I am nuts. It would figure. Maybe I should talk to him, so he doesn't get all suspicious and stuff.

"Food?" she asked, immediately giving herself a mental smack. _Out of all the things you could possibly think to talk about, _food_? Idiot! And not even in a complete sentence, either!_

"You are hungry?" His voice was somewhat concerned. _But why would he be upset about me eating? Stupid._

She decided to lie, even though she hadn't eaten since the day before, and candy bars probably weren't supposed to count either. "Noooo." she started nervously. "I'm just thinking, what if we can't find any later? Don't want to starve. D'you suppose the natural plant life is safe enough?" There. Something to think about.

Lego-Spock bent down to brush the grass beneath their feet. Susan shivered involuntarily at the sight. _What the hell is wrong with you? He touched the grass. Big woo-hoo. Scaaaaary._

__

Oh, shut UP, another part of her mind countered. _If you stay here all day, you've accomplished nothing. And how stupid is that?_

"Very," she admitted, and then groaned. She'd spoken out loud, hadn't she? And now she really was crazy.

Legolas placed a friendly hand on her shoulder. "We'll take what doesn't look poisonous, but only as a last resort. Let's go." And that was that. They were off.


	8. Dark Side of the Moon

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Even If You Were The Last Person On Earth

By Colorain

Disclaimer: I'm worried. Apparently I'm on the verge of Mary-Suing, _and_ turning this into a romance, and neither of these were my original intentions. So . . . if Susan seems a little OOC, I'm bringing her back on track . . . to, um, the original?

For more on urban legends, visit http://www.snopes.com, or be specific and go here: http://www.rareexception.com/Garden/Floyd/Floyd.php. I don't own any of this stuff. Shoo.

Oh, but let me know if it's worth continuing.

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Owwwww. Ow. Ow."

Well, that was it. She was beginning to annoy _herself_. So moving hurt. So breathing hurt. So thinking hurt. So . . . so _ouch_ was the point. Yeah. But it was still really annoying.

To his credit, Spock managed to give her scathing glances only about once every ten minutes. The rest of the time, he just looked damned amused. Well, and damned hot from behind, but she preferred her men tall, dark, and relatively sane. Favorably human as well, if at all possible. _Her_ Earth human, too. Normally these criteria wouldn't be so hard to fill, but if you were the last person on Earth (well, _one_ Earth), it made things just ever-so-slightly difficult. And Susan really, really hated difficult.

Really. Like, _really_ really. Really.

God, she was annoying. It was amazing that Spock hadn't shot her already. 

Ooooh. Not that she wanted to get shot or anything. That would definitely ruin the manicure.

__

Bad thoughts. Oh-so-very-very-bad thoughts, she mused silently. _And not like picturing Mr. Sancto naked either._

Oooooh. Worse_ thoughts._ She went back to thinking about getting shot.

In front of her, Spock absently fingered his crossbow.

__

Ooooooooh crap.

~*~

By about the third hour of walking, Susan began to wonder if it would really be so wrong if she were to play up the damsel-in-distress deal, since she was definitely in distress. And a damsel to boot. Damn, she had it made.

Well, except for the dashing prince. Lego-Spock was dashing (kind of), but she had a feeling _he_ was tolerating her, instead of the other way around. It was kind of discomforting, but being the last two organisms on a plane of existence meant you probably tended to grate on each other's nerves. A lot. Susan didn't _feel_ like testing out the theory, but it seemed unavoidable. Eventually she was going to piss him off to the point where he'd pull an arrow and aim it right at her throat. Her ex-boyfriends had done nothing less.

In fact, she _still_ hurt from the last boy who'd gone Medieval elf on her. 

Kidding! Kidding . . . God, how bored was she? Very, if she was dwelling on the ex-hotties she'd been out with. Susan groaned. It was just a very ouchy day.

Rather unfortunately, Lego-Spock-whatchamacallim had a mean-spirited way of not making any noise when he moved. Or didn't move. So Susan didn't feel an ounce of blame for slamming into him two seconds later.

The sky looked pretty. Different from what she was used to, but nice. The clouds were cute. Visions of handsome men with white horses floated through her blurred vision.

And then Lego-boy swam into view.

Damn thing hadn't even moved after she'd barreled into him. He was still standing like some kind of hunting dog on the breeze, except for the fact that there _was_ no breeze and she wouldn't actually ever call him a dog to his face. Unless she was _looking_ for trouble. Which she totally wasn't.

"Pink Floyd's _Dark Side of the Moon _finally make sense?" Susan commented from the wonderfully squishy ground. _Not looking for trouble, hmm?_ Her completely annoying adultish side chastised. _Yeaaaaaah. You're not going to getting beaten up, oh no._

But as Spock was wont to do, he did nothing. Just stood there like some kind of statue. Maybe he heard something. Maybe she'd killed him. You just couldn't tell these days.

"Don't help or anything," Susan muttered as she picked herself up off the ground. She was going to be so black and blue by the end of the day she'd probably blend into the scenery that night.

Legolas held up a hand to shush her, and for once, she didn't argue. Instead, her eyes followed the line of sight his own were taking, and she stopped breathing.

The end of the world wasn't going to finish in nothing. It was going to be black.

She knew, because she could see it.


	9. You Know What? We Are So Not Amused

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Even If You Were The Last Person On Earth

By Colorain

To the reviewers! Serendu: the "Sue" radar is muchly appreciated! Mija: yeah, I know I'm weird. But I'm glad you like it! Goddess-Isis-112: . . . long name there, eh? It's good to be intriguing, yes! Seraphim of the Dark Moon: favs list! YES! Uki: It depends on how annoying I feel on making our dear, beloved Susan. So yes, she will probably get whipped. Will it be by Legolas? Oooh, that would be telling. And Thanatos! What can I say? Long reviews kick @$$!

Disclaimer: Do you even realize how nice it is to be able to say that I own Susan, and how much it sucks that I don't own Legolas? Bugger. Did you also know that I own the end of the world? Booyah! 

The voyage into seriousness begins . . . **now**.

So much for blue skies and rainbows and Susan's dream that this all really _was_ some weird drug-induced dream. What she was seeing was something beyond even the darkest and deepest reaches of her very soul. It was nothing she could imagine, and nothing she would ever want to.

"Oh my God," she whispered, afraid that speaking too loudly would break the rest of the world as she knew it. The horizon stretched out like a fatal wound, a cut of harsh and punishing black polluting the green grass and bright blue sky she had become accustomed to seeing. It looked like blood spilt in anger and hate. It looked like the absence of hope and the pain of forgetting. It looked like death.

It hadn't been there a minute ago. It most definitely had not. And Legolas was seeing it as well, which meant it really had to be there, regardless of what had been a minute ago.

Susan stepped back unconsciously in mute horror, her reflexes keeping her upright for perhaps the first time in her life. The world snapped back to normal, and she felt like vomiting.

"Legolas," she quavered. He didn't respond. She tried louder.

"Legolas." He turned to look at her then, eyebrows raised in a slight look of "I'm looking at the end of the world, now what did you want to ask me?" Susan gulped. Of all the times for things to get serious. If looks could kill, she'd be dead about a hundred times over.

She managed to bite out, "Come here," before falling silent again. Legolas shrugged his shoulders the barest fraction of an inch before turning to join her.

"No!" she yelled, then softened her tone. "No, don't turn around. You have to walk backwards. _Slowly._"

He complied with the most miniscule of rakish grins, further proving that it was _he_ who was tolerating _her. _She watched his feet as he glided towards her. There was absolutely no trace of hesitation or awkwardness. The man knew what he was doing, and wasn't goddamn likely to fall over on his ass doing it.

Susan's eyes flickered to his face. She couldn't see any reaction, but he _had_ to have seen what she did. The dark was there, and then it was not. It was belief, and then it was disbelief.

"It is a crack," he murmured quietly. "A break in some unknown facade that is shielding some great evil. But why? What is the point? There is no one here to see it . . . only us. And why would we be brought here? If there is nothing to kill, why hold it in at all?"

~*~

So his words were not exactly comforting. Susan definitely counted herself among the killable things, and was, therefore, vehemently opposed to seeing that . . . _thing_ unleashed. But there was no way of voicing that. Only confusion.

"Maybe it's like pressure," she said, so softly she wasn't even sure she had actually spoken until Legolas turned to look at her more directly. It was funny, now that she thought about it, how quickly her stupid nickname for him had vanished in the face of mortal peril. She continued.

"When you squeeze in on something, it wants to get out all the more. The most harmless thing can produce disastrous results if you put enough pressure on it." She looked back at the seamless view in front of her and shuddered. "That we can see it at all probably isn't a very good sign. It means it's ready to break . . . it means it's _past_ the point of just breaking. It's going to explode."

Legolas caught her eyes, and Susan blinked suddenly. They were full of a sadness and age she couldn't begin to comprehend.

There was no need to speak what the both of them were thinking. It was a thought too dangerous to bring to life.

__

When it exploded, it wouldn't stay where it was. Everything . . . everywhere would be destroyed.

~*~

If one thing was certain, it was that they couldn't stand at the spot all day. They had been given a new purpose now, as much as Susan didn't want to believe it. They were going to have to save the world.

So when she left a tube of lipstick to document where they had been, her words fell flat in the thick air.

"My favorite color," she lamented, but it was achingly half-hearted.


	10. A Year In Real Time, Ten Minutes In A St...

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Even If You Were The Last Person On Earth

by Colorain

To the readers: I love you, babes. I'm sure none of you that ever read this to begin with thought I'd keep going, but . . . aha, look, I am. Ninety seven reviews! Dude. I hope to finish this baby, really. And have it go somewhere. And eventually have a plot. And longer chapters. And some version of continuity or good-ness.

My god, thank you for putting up with me. One year after I last updated. .

Disclaimer: I don't own Legolas. I own Susan. And, consequently, I rule the world. Aha.

Sometimes Susan found it to be in her overwhelming favor to be serious. Sometimes she could overlook the rip in her jeans, the stain on her new shirt, the getting-lost-in-an-utterly-new-world-with-a-tall-blonde-freak-of-an-elf.

And sometimes Susan could even find it in herself to shut up and not say anything. This could, at times, be exceedingly difficult.

But there was just something about the impending end of the world that made a girl sit up straight, walk taller, and cut the crap. It was time to get serious.

~*~

"Left."

It had been a hard thing to say, and the look on Legolas' face reflected that. He looked . . . old. If an elf could _look_ old. Susan found herself doubting one could. Doubting, but . . . here she was, and here he was, and she looked scared and he looked _old_. It wasn't so much his eyes; she was used to them by now. Those eyes were like planets within themselves, having seen more than they could ever truly reveal and looking to the future with no concept of time.

. . . and there she went being poetic, and goddamn if Susan Blackweld was _ever_ poetic. One of her best verses had gone "I like your nose / It inspires me to prose . . .". And that one wasn't even a joke. He might have had that big kind of Roman conk . . . 

Susan: serious. Mission? Impossible.

~*~

But the burning question still remained: "Why left? Why not . . . right, or backwards, or . . ." She found she couldn't say "straight ahead". "Straight ahead" was like walking into her doom, and although she realized she couldn't just leave and ignore it, she wasn't quite ready to face that final fact yet.

There was . . . (pause for dramatic effect) a schism in the sky. A crack in the horizon. And she had left her lipstick behind in the hopes she could come back and get it.

Not like it would be okay. If nothing else, the heat from the sun would cook all the good color out of it. She had a strange feeling if she stayed too long here, the sun would steal her color too, but that was just a foolish hunch, and probably because she hadn't eaten since yesterday.

Had it really been only yesterday she'd been caught in that storm? Well, yeah. Stupid question. But yesterday seemed like a million miles away . . . and hell, it really was. A million miles, a pair of clean clothes, an un-holy backpack, a tube of her favorite lipstick, and an age of innocence away.

Susan Blackweld could be poetic. It usually involved her bitching at something.

~*~

Legolas sighed.

. . . she was having trouble concentrating. She was drifting. Bad Norolinde. Stop thinking about food. And noses. And lipstick. For God's sake, she had a world to save.

. . . and since when did she call herself Norolinde? Since never, that's when. Legolas was rubbing off on her. Too bad she couldn't pick up some of his grace. Or tireless-ness. Or the uncanny and unfair way his hair seemed to remain perfectly straight and shiny and smooth and clean while hers was already beginning to cake with dirt and sweat. Then again, he was a blonde. And blondes were generally evil and unnatural to begin with.

Not that that had to do with any jealousy on her part or anything.

Not that blondes hadn't stolen half of her ex-boyfriends.

Or was it that they had?

Gosh, the sun was getting stifling. 

And then she saw something that made her shriek in relief.

"Berries!"


End file.
